A Yellow Rose
by Lorca the Great
Summary: Roxas doesn't like Valentine's Day. Axel is sexy. Ohh, let's see what happens. Pre-KHII, Oneshot, AkuRoku. -For Valentine's Day-


**Author's Note: **I know, I know. I should be working on AWFY, but I thought it appropriate to write a Valentine's Day fic for AkuRoku, because they need some love. And because I needed some cheering up, because I loathe this holiday just as much as Roxas does. I just don't have an Axel. Bah.

**Disclaimer:** I didn't invent Valentine's day or Kingdom Hearts. I just use the ideas because they are SQUEEE-ful.

Enjoy and reviews are much appreciated.

**Suggested Listening: **Blac by Qntal.

**EDIT: **Oh my word. I cannot believe that I spelled Xemnas' name wrong. UGH. Just kill me now. This is what I get for writing this thing in like 2.5 hours. I_ knew_ it looked wrong. _Knew_ it. Anyhow. Fixed. Read on.

**EDIT Number Two:** Well, I fixed some blatant errors and added just a little bit to the descriptions and stuff. Not too much. Enjoy the corny fluff!

-- --

A Yellow Rose

--

Roxas growled as he stomped down the sidewalk in some world where he had never been before. He hated the sun and the cold wind that whipped his hair into his brilliant but smoldering blue eyes. He hated Thursdays. But most of all, he hated this day.

Fucking Valentine's Day.

A bunch of sentimental crap thrown around all day and ample amounts of the most horrid color to ever be created: pink. What was worse were the hearts, but Roxas dared not dwell on the symbolism. It was just couple's appreciation day. Anyone who was anyone had someone by their side, or had a candy in their pocket from someone they cared about. Being a nobody really sucked on a day like this.

Roxas may not have had a heart, but he certainly loathed this holiday with every fiber of his heartless being. Especially since a certain annoying bastard of a redhead had forgotten.

Roxas paused his huffy stride to kick some helpless tulips growing happily in a planter outside someone's house. There was a paper heart in the window and Roxas had a sudden urge to tear that heart into as many pieces as nobody-ly possible. He turned his gaze from the sight, squeezed his eyes tight, and hoped for a tear which would never come. He let out a frustrated sigh and shoved the hood of his coat over his blond spikes and continued onward, sulking all the more.

He turned the corner and a flash of red caught his attention. He whipped his head to the side, but found only a crumpled rose sitting in the gutter. He cursed himself for thinking of the redhead, so childish in his wondering.

It was a lone rose – probably perfect at one point in time. Just that morning, it had been cut and tended with the utmost care. Now it lay abandoned, petals falling from the stem from lack of water and tending. Roxas bent and retrieved it, marveled in a disinterested manner as one of the thorns stabbed into his thumb. He watched the single drop of blood run down to his palm, much akin to the tear he had been trying to squeeze out that never would grace his cheek. The pain felt wonderful. It was the only time when he could actually _feel_. But then again, a certain redhead had been jumping to mind unceremoniously and unpredictably into his mind as of late and there was a glimmer of something in his hollow chest. Roxas wasn't sure what or if he was feeling when he was around the pyrokinetic nobody. All he knew was that he certainly felt like the flower looked at that moment: alone and forgotten.

He took the rose with him as he continued on his way to nowhere in the nowhere world to find a nobody who he wasn't even actually looking for. The thorn dug deeper into his flesh as he went, aiding in his animosity towards the retched holiday. He smiled bitterly at the rose. So beautiful it was, and yet so dangerous at the same time. And the red – Roxas cursed explosively and crushed his hands to the sides of his head.

Why the hell was Axel always forcing his way into his brain? It had been his goal to forget about the bastard for an entire day and to sulk in his loneliness, and so far he had only accomplished the second of the two. Roxas ground his teeth and grimaced as a stray thorn scratched his neck, deep enough for it to redden and sting. He shoved the offending flower into his coat and called forth a portal before him. He stared at the inky blackness before stepping through the swirling darkness, the familiar suffocating and chilling black nothing encompassing his body.

He found himself in a dark city – nighttime in this world. The lights were blinding and the streets bustling with – _fucking_ – couples. Roxas turned away from the nightlife and connected hearts, moving into a dark alley – a perfect breeding ground for those beasts that stole hearts. A perfect day for them, Valentine's Day. _Take all of their hearts and make more nobodies like me. That way they will understand what it's like to feel so numb._

Roxas called forth the keyblades and felt their familiar weight in his hands. And there were the yellow eyes; the creatures with stolen hearts who didn't know the true power of what they possessed. The small ones always came first, so naïve and tempted by the keyblades and the one bearing them. Well, lucky for Roxas, he had no heart to steal.

Roxas gave a ruthless bitter grin and took his battle stance before launching into action – a flurry of black and of shining blades as he gave his deadly dance. Hearts leapt from the boiling darkness as the heartless perished at his hand.

Xemnas had clearly given the entire organization the day off – Roxas really had no clue why, since they didn't have the hearts to celebrate the day _with_ – but the petite blond needed something to do to get his mind off of the damned redhead. What better way to do that then to do his sole purpose in his shadow of a life? He whirled in a deadly flurry, countless heartless falling prey to his blades. Cold, ruthless, heartless.

He gave one last slash at a shadow's head before leaping up into the air. A keyblade clattered to the cracked pavement and a pale hand reached for the heart. It was just at his fingertips – almost in his grasp – when the darkness took it from the sky, to return to Kingdom Hearts. He landed heavily, blue eyes still looking longingly at the space in which the heart had just been. Which was when a neo shadow tackled his exposed back.

Roxas let out a savage growl as the thing's claws dug into his shoulders. He spun violently and drove the keyblade through its head, bits of black shadow clinging slightly to the shining metal before dissolving to join the night.

He continued on, moving from world to world and destroying whatever heartless he came across. Hours passed in each place he stopped as he fought. He was careless and was spotted by half a dozen bystanders and for each one, he said only one thing:

"Don't lose your heart. Your nobody will never forgive you." And he would leave.

It was dark at the castle when he finally returned, stumbling down the hall in exhaustion. In his day's exploits, Roxas had quite come to forget the day of the week and how much the holiday sucked. But, then again, he had spent the entire day liberating hearts so they could join the heart of all worlds and possibly the hearts that had been separated from one another. His thumb still stung from the rose, but it was a simple nuisance at the back of his mind.

He opened the door to his room and tossed down the keyblades in a dark corner. He tromped through the mostly empty and roomy quarters before throwing open the door to his bedroom. He stumbled to his bed and collapsed face-down, not bothering to pull back his hood. He groaned as the day's exertion made itself known as his muscles burned and complained. The room fell to silence, which was when he realized that he wasn't at all alone. Roxas whipped around, boots clunking noisily on the floor as he sat up on the edge of his bed, hands weakly gripping the mattress as he glared at the corner of the room which wasn't quite as empty as he had previously thought. Oh, no.

"Axel, what _the hell_?" Roxas spat at the redhead, who was leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

A simple quiet laugh bubbled from Axel, "About time you noticed, Rox." The small smirk melted away and his voice lost the lightness, "Where have you been? I was looking for you all day."

The blond scowled, "Well, you weren't looking hard enough."

The carefully neutral redhead dislodged himself from the wall and took a few steps over to Roxas, very literally towering over him, "Or perhaps you didn't _want_ to be found."

His teeth were bared, "And why the fuck would I want that?" The mattress was in a death-grip by now, Roxas's knuckles whitened with his rage.

"You could ask yourself that, Roxas," Axel said softly, arms crossing once again at his front. "Why did you run away this morning?"

That morning – Roxas scowled. He had woken up and met the redhead in the hall, like every other day. But somehow, Roxas had hoped that Axel had remembered that the day was supposed to be special. When Axel had expressed his surprise at finding that Valentine's Day was _that_ day, Roxas had stormed out in a flurry of curses and had gone on hating the day that represented everything that they didn't have but pretended that they did.

"You forgot it was Valentine's Day," Roxas said quietly, hating every word.

"Were you expecting something?" The coldness in Axel's voice made Roxas wince and turn his gaze away from those green eyes of his.

"I shouldn't have." The blond muttered bitterly.

"Why not?" The sudden softness in the tone brought blue eyes to meet green once again. Only they were much, _much _closer this time around. The gaze was intense and Roxas took in a sharp breath at the sudden change of demeanor in Axel.

"I-I don't- ouch!" Axel's hand was pressed onto his own, grinding the rose-induced injury on his thumb into the mattress. Roxas hadn't realized how painful it had been at the time, but with Axel's accidental pressure on the injury, the pain blossomed and burned.

The redhead's eyes widened, "Don't tell me you got yourself hurt, Rox." The blond pulled his hand out from underneath Axel's and it was taken gently into long, pale hands. It was inspected closely, the only light available coming from the open window and the heart-shaped moon that stood outside of it. "Shit, Roxas, how did you get this?"

Roxas's distracted fingers unzipped his coat and he retrieved the rose and held it before the green eyes. "It poked me. It's not that big of a-" He choked as lips touched the wound, pleasurable and yet painful at the same time. Roxas stared at Axel – eyes closed and expression tranquil and concerned – as he kissed the blood-crusted wound. And as soon as it had begun, it was over, and the green eyes turned to the rose between the two.

It was lifted carefully out of Roxas's grasp and examined closely. Green fell to blue, "It doesn't suit you. There's only one." Before Roxas could grasp a hold onto what the redhead had just said, he was speaking again, "Did it get you anywhere else?" The rose was set carefully aside.

Roxas's free hand moved unconsciously to the scrape on his neck. He got a flash of a smile before his hand was taken into another and his touch replaced by those same soft lips that had comforted his thumb. Roxas's breath hitched as the light kisses moved along his neck, red spikes brushing lightly against his jaw.

"A-Axel-" Roxas ground out, mind buzzing with the sensation. The green eyes were back, softened by a smile. Roxas could only gape at their beauty and the beauty of the one nobody who made him feel like he actually _did_ have a heart.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Roxas," Axel said to the blond, voice soft and deep. Before Roxas could respond, lips were pressed against his own, the taste of ash and spice grazing his tongue. Roxas's hands found the back of Axel's head and his fingers laced through the soft red spikes, gently pulling him closer. As if this had confirmed something for the redhead, he turned his head and began kissing Roxas in earnest, to which the blond responded most perfectly, succumbing to a satisfied hum. Axel's hands found their way to his shoulders and squeezed ever so slightly at first, but as their kiss heightened, it grew steadily tighter.

Roxas felt a stab of pain in the back of his fuzzy mind, now not all that welcome, and let out a discomforted grunt. Axel noticed the change in Roxas and pulled away from his lips.

"Rox?"

A hand left the red spikes and covered his injured shoulder, "A neo jumped me," _while I was reaching for a heart for us_.

Careful hands pulled back the cloak and revealed three gashes in the petite shoulder, identical to the three on the opposite side. "Shit, Roxas. Xemnas gave us the day off, and you went out and killed some heartless on your own?" Roxas bit his lip as the scratches were inspected more closely by the redhead. Axel sighed and pulled away ever so slightly, "I can't cure _those_ with kisses, Rox." A gentle grin broke out across his face, "Why don't we get you some band aids?" He stood and offered a hand down to Roxas, who took it gratefully. He was pulled into a tight hug, their bodies pressed together and Axel holding the blond close while avoiding his injuries. Roxas's arms wound around the small waist and he buried his face into the warm heartless chest before him, and he fancied that he could hear a heartbeat between the two of them, one heart for two nobodies.

"Then we can get another rose so this one won't be quite so lonely." Axel whispered into the blond spikes.

A smile spread across Roxas's cheeks, hidden in the redhead's chest, "We can get a yellow one."

"Rox?" Axel whispered, pulling away from the tight embrace. Roxas hummed in question, looking up to meet the sheepish gaze, "Do you think it is possible for a nobody to have a heart?"

"Or a half of a heart…"

Green eyes brightened, "Two halves of a whole."

"I hope so." Roxas gave a soft and adoring smile.

"I love you, Roxas." Axel leaned towards the blond, who completed his half heart.

"I love you, too, Axel." And their shared heart was complete.


End file.
